Comfort
by Cr33pingParanoia
Summary: Sometimes, all you really need is someone to hold you. Set after Episode 22. Rated M for language.


Disclaimer: _Neon Genesis Evangelion_ and its characters are the property of Gainax and Hideaki Anno. I own no part of the show or its content, and make no profit from this writing.

It's 3:45 AM as I write this. I've sat in bed the past two hours in a fit of exhaustion- and insanity-induced creativity, forming this little piece in my mind, and I couldn't sleep until I got it out of my brain.

"Comfort"

By Cr33pingParanoia

"Hey, Asuka? I'm . . . I'm glad you're okay."

Cicadas.

Having been born after Second Impact and thus after the beginning of Japan's current perpetual summer, Shinji Ikari had been listening to the ubiquitous buzzing of the insects his entire life. He was familiar with the sound. And yet, he had never truly noticed it as he did now. The normal, monotonous drone of the cicadas was suddenly transformed into an oppressive roar; what would have been a heavy silence between him and Asuka was instead filled with their endless cacophony. The din drowned out his every thought, and for a time, it seemed, it had done the same to his words.

"Shut up! Who the hell is okay? How could it get any worse? That little bitch . . . that little bitch Rei rescued me. Don't you know that I'd rather have died? I hate her! I hate you, Shinji! I hate everything!"

. . .

Apparently not.

Helplessness was another sensation with which the Third Child was intimately familiar. Sitting in the entry plug of Unit 01 during the battle had been utterly torturous; each one of her screams and cries of pain had been a knife in his heart, twisting and wrenching and burning. No physical pain he had endured in his Eva compared to what he had felt then, as the Fifteenth Angel raped and defiled Asuka's mind. He had begged and screamed and pleaded to be allowed to help her, but in the end, Rei had been the one to end the mental assault, using the blood-red object his father had called the _Lancea Longini_.

But, as with the sounds of the cicadas, Shinji had never been as acutely aware of his own utter helplessness as he was now. Listening to Asuka's torment paled in comparison to seeing her in this state, but he could do nothing. _Nothing_. The sheer weight of his own impotence crushed and paralyzed him. It was maddening, but more than that, it was terrifying. The cicadas grew even louder.

And so he stood, silent, head cast down, behind the tape which set up the impromptu quarantine zone; it seemed to him a physical manifestation of the emotional separation which had always been forced between them. He could hardly stand to look at her as she was: curled up into a fetal position, motionless and soundless. The energy and vitality which, along with her beauty, had drawn him to her for all this time were totally gone, as if the Angel had ripped every last bit out of her.

It was maddening, to be so close to her and still be so completely useless. Shinji hated it. He hated the Angel for doing this to her. He hated his father and the others for not letting him help her. But most of all, he hated himself for not doing anything. The cicadas grew louder still.

He was near the breaking point. The cicadas had morphed into a chorus of voices, each one mocking him for his incompetence, his inaction. They laughed and jeered and shouted at him. "_Look at you!" _They screamed. "_Where is the Invincible Shinji, destroyer of angels and protector of mankind? Where is he now?"_

They wouldn't let me fight, he thought.

"_You couldn't save her!"_

There was nothing I could do!

"_You sat there like a child!"_

I wanted to help her! I tried!

"_And now you can't even comfort her!"_

What am I supposed to do? I don't know how to comfort her!

"_How pathetic you are!"_

Shut up.

"_Disgusting!"_

SHUT UP.

"_Useless!"_

SHUT UP! SHUT UP, GODDAMN YOU! LEAVE ME ALONE!

All at once, he cicadas faded once more to background noise, and Shinji snapped back to reality, taking a moment to steady himself. His fists were clenched and his breathing was loud and heavy.

"What the hell are you still doing here?"

The sound of her voice, soft and hollow and bitter as it was, nonetheless jerked him from his reverie. At some point in his near-breakdown, he must have made enough noise to alert her to his presence. But he did not answer; he only resumed staring at her as before.

"I told you to go away!"

Still he did not react. His whole body seemed to be made of lead.

"Why won't you just leave me the fuck alone!"

His head snapped up. With those last words, she had finally stirred, and she now sat facing him, glowering venomously, as if her very stare could burn a hole straight through him. And it was at this precise moment that two peculiar but closely-related thoughts popped into Shinji's mind.

The first was that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

In truth, her appearance was at that time not exactly what most would consider presentable. Her hair, for all its exotic grandeur, was matted and clumped, and still damp from the LCL, drops of the bloodlike liquid dripping from it at random intervals. Her face seemed sunken, and her complexion appeared much paler than usual. In general, her appearance suggested one who had not slept for several days, though Shinji doubted that was the case. Her voice, when she had yelled at him, was feeble and hoarse from screaming. But most telling of all were her eyes.

The brilliant blue orbs normally shined with vigor and confidence and held only a hint that all was not as it should be within the redhead's heart. But now, though she attempted to mask them with a pitiful veil of affected anger, the despair and loneliness which ate at the German girl's soul filled her eyes in such a way that made Shinji feel sick to his stomach.

But Shinji didn't care about any of that. To him, the same beauty which had quickly catapulted her to the height of popularity at school (and to the top of Touji and Kensuke's requests for pictures) appeared as clearly as it ever had. The pathetic façade of depression and hatred could not cover her pure, wonderful radiance.

The second thought was that he loved her.

In his own way, he had always known, but the thought had never seemed as clear and pure and simple to him as it did at that moment. He _loved _her.

"Are you deaf or something? Leave me alone! I HATE YOU!"

He ignored her. In that one precise moment of clarity, he had understood.

And now, he would act.

"Wha . . . What the fuck are you doing?"

He stepped boldly forward, past the tape, shattering the barrier between them in that instant. In a single graceful movement, Shinji sat beside Asuka and pulled her into his arms, holding her against his chest.

Asuka went rigid, her breath catching. Her whole body seemed frozen in utter shock.

"It's okay, Asuka. I'm here for you." He hadn't meant to say anything. The words were simple, cliché, but they carried the full force of his emotions. As he spoke, Asuka's paralysis broke, and she turned her head to face him.

"What the fuck are you doing?! Let me go, you perverted bastard!" She struggled, hitting and kicking and even attempting to bite him through his plugsuit. But her strength died quickly, and Shinji had never felt stronger than he did now, sitting there, arms wrapped around the one person who meant more to him than anything.

"I SAID LET ME GO!"

"_No._"

Her struggling ceased altogether. She slowly turned to stare at him again.

"_What?_"

He stared back at her, feeling more confident and assured of himself than he ever had in his life. "No. I couldn't help you before, but I promise I'll never let anyone hurt you again. I won't ever let you go, Asuka."

And then he kissed her.

His body felt like it was on fire, every bit of pent-up emotion flowing into that kiss. His anger, fear, love, desire; everything rushed out of him. He felt lighter than he ever had. He felt fresh and clean and new. And for a second or two, she seemed to return the kiss with the same passion, the same release of her repressed feelings.

As Shinji pulled back, Asuka was left in shock for another few seconds, but as he gazed warmly into her eyes, she pulled herself together. Her face twisted in anger and she tensed against him. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but shut it quickly. Shinji, not really knowing what had possessed him to throw away his life in such a way, now that he had _finally_ found something to live for, fully expected her to strike him dead on the spot.

A few days earlier, she probably would have.

Instead, she burst into tears and collapsed against him. "You idiot," she sobbed. "You . . . you fucking idiot."

But there was no anger in her words, and he simply held her tighter.

_Fin_

Author's Note: And now, hopefully, I can sleep. Thanks for reading, and I hoped you enjoyed it.

Author's Note the Second (The Day After): I'm still not sure where this came from, exactly. I haven't written fanfic in years, but my mind just would not let me be at peace till I typed this up.

As this was originally forming in my brain, I had planned for a sequence in the middle which flipped to Asuka's perspective, but it seemed to flow much better this way as I wrote it. I hadn't originally meant to have either the sequence with the cicada-voices in Shinji's head or the kiss, but they just sort of wrote themselves and I thought they fit pretty well. If I'm feeling inspired some time in the future, I may add another chapter which flips to Asuka's perspective, but I feel like that would be a lot tougher and I'm not sure I'll end up doing it.

I hope I didn't make either of them too out of character, but I think I did okay. A lot of writers make Shinji too wimpy and Asuka too bitchy, when they really weren't that bad up to this point in the series. Shinji had a couple of pretty bold moments earlier in the series, and this fic kind of formed around the idea that maybe he had one more (the biggest one yet) left in him by this time.


End file.
